Broken
by jhm64892
Summary: Karen is broken and Derek is there to pick up the million tiny pieces. She feels everything - guilt, disgust, anger, sorrow and hurt all at once because of what one person did to her one night. Warning contains mention of rape and sexual assault
1. The Fear

_**A/N – I realise that it's really stupid to start a new story when I still haven't updated my other stories so please forgive me. I should probably mention that this is set after Karen met Jimmy but before she left Bombshell and she and Derek have started dating but very few people know about it.**_

_**Warning: Rated M because of rape and assault mentions**_

_**Disclosure: I don't own Smash if I did it wouldn't have been cancelled**_

She sat on the cold, hard concrete in the middle of the alleyway behind Table 46. Her mascara-stained face rested in the palms of her pale hands, her hair was a matted mess of dirt and leaves, her new Jimmy Choos were wrecked from running through the dark, damp streets of New York, her top was ripped to shreds and her trousers torn to a point where they barely existed. She heard someone, a certain blonde actress, day her name but she didn't – couldn't – force herself to look up. There was no point, Ivy would insist upon taking her to the hospital and then she'd have to tell the tale of what _he _had done to her and she really didn't want to relive that.

She was disgusted with herself – for trusting him, for backing down, for allowing herself to become the kind of person to be pitied – she hurt all over – even standing up and moving herself to this very spot had hurt more than any normal person can comprehend – she was sad, so unbelievably upset that she couldn't cry and she couldn't cry because she was so sad not wanting to be this nervous wreck. Most of all, she was angry, angry at herself, angry at him but also angry at the people – and she knew there were people because she'd seen them – who stood by and listened to her screams as he forced his way inside her.

She heard the hurried clip-clop of high heels and immediately recognised that Ivy must have gone back inside the tiny, little bar to get help but she was beyond help at this point, so far beyond help. She eventually looked up to see an empty alleyway and rested her head back in the palms of her hands.

She heard her name being said, repeatedly, by _him _and she couldn't help but scream "Karen? What the hell? It's me, Jimmy!" he exclaimed and she screamed again, the very sound of his voice scared the living daylights out of her.

Somebody had heard her scream and rushed out of the bar she'd frequented for weeks; she recognised the shoes and peeked through her fingers to see what she recognized as the bottom of the coat that Derek Wills had worn from the day they had started working together. "What's going on here?" was his immediate question and she looked up, all of the sorrow, pain, disgust and anger in her eyes – as much as she had wanted to hide it from everyone – and the very instant he saw it, he was at her side, he'd wrapped his arms around her in a protective hug and she rested her head on his shoulder, finally able to cry because somehow being in such close proximity to Derek made her less sad and she was able to cry for the first time since _it _had happened. "Whatever happened, whoever did this, I _will _be there for you," he whispered before turning to Ivy and telling her "Go get your handbag, a hairbrush and some tissues,"

"G-get _him _to leave," Karen whispered and Derek gave her an extremely confused look.

"Who?"

"J-jimmy," she said her voice almost inaudible.

Derek nodded before saying "Jimmy, go and grab Ana," knowing that Ana had gone back to the apartment she and Karen shared.

Now that everyone was gone, Karen felt slightly more comfortable explaining to Derek what had happened but she refused to divulge it fully "H-he wouldn't st-stop, I… I t-told him t-to st-stop b-but he w-wouldn't," she said quietly and she felt Derek hold her closer to him.

After a few moments, Derek started to pull out of the hug and he began to examine her injuries. He noticed the bruises starting to appear along her arms and the black eye that was beginning to show, the gash on her face had obviously stopped bleeding but it was still there and her bottom lip bled profusely "Oh love, who did this to you?" he said trying to stop himself from crying because he knew that he needed to be strong for his girlfriend.

"He said th-that if I… if I told anyone h-he'd d-do it a-again," she told him and Derek felt his heart break for her. She knew she was fast becoming a statistic, part of that one in three women who didn't report that they had been sexually assaulted but as much as she hated it, she couldn't, she could barely acknowledge that it had even happened.

She didn't remember how she'd gotten home, she didn't know whether the clothes she currently wore were her own or someone else's and she didn't know how she'd gotten off the ground of that alleyway but she had a feeling that Derek had something to do with each of it, he really was the best boyfriend possible and she now thought that she'd been soiled for him, she could never be the pure young woman he'd fallen in love with.

She did remember what _he _had done to her and that was why she'd woken up in the middle of the night, screaming out for _him _to stop, cold beads of sweat dripping down her face and neck "Karen, it's just a nightmare," a British accent told her and as she opened her eyes, she noted that Ana, Derek and Ivy were crowded round her bed, obviously none of them had gotten much sleep and she couldn't help but sob even though no tears were able to fall. She felt like she didn't deserve any of them, a part of her felt like she had cheated on Derek because of the fact that she had stopped fighting and just let it happen.

Derek had stayed on the seat which he'd placed by Karen's bed for the entirety of that night, knowing that he _needed _to be by Karen's side. He'd woken up the next morning with a slight ache in his back and a palm print on his face but he didn't care. He'd wanted to get Karen to a hospital but she had refused point blank so they'd taken her back to the apartment instead and performed some basic first aid, thankfully Derek knew enough to be able to stitch up the gash on Karen's face and he hoped that it wouldn't scar. He'd left the room when Ana and Ivy worked on the rape kit, finding it too hard to watch the woman he loved be examined by her two friends in case their suspicions were right.

Unfortunately, they were and between the three of them, he, Ana and Ivy had decided that at least one person would be by Karen's side at all times, in case of breakdowns or in case _he _showed up again. They had also enlisted Julia, Jessica and Sue in their mission, not properly explaining why they needed them or what had happened but the three women had been more than happy to help. After hearing Karen's screams in the night, they had figured out who _he _was and upon realising that they all knew him, they decided that they couldn't let him anywhere near Karen.

Derek had made the conscious decision to postpone rehearsals of Bombshell temporarily – much to Jerry ad Eileen's dismay – so that Karen could at least have a chance of properly recovering.

Karen came through to the living room at about 10am; she'd noticed that Derek wasn't by her bedside she thought that he had left so when she entered the living room and found him cooking breakfast for her, she was surprised to say the least. She'd thought he had realised what a bad person she had become – the kind who cheats on their boyfriend – and had left her but there he was making her breakfast and she felt guilty and then angry not at herself, not at Derek but at _him _because _he _had made her feel this way because of what _he _had done to her the night before.

When Derek told her that rehearsals had been postponed, she simply nodded and when asked what she wanted to do she just walked over to the DVD cabinet, picked out her copy of The Lion King, put it in the DVD Player and waited for it to start, refusing to utter even a single word. This, she decided, would be her life until she was forced to leave her apartment – movies, TV and Derek.


	2. Broken Strings

She'd started taking five showers a day, rubbing her skin raw just so that she might feel clean again but it didn't work. She'd started wearing her more conservative, Iowan clothes so that she didn't feel like she would provoke another attack. Everyone was worried and while she'd started to smile at the sweetness of Disney movies again, she still wasn't the same. She needed the stitches removing from the gash in her cheek but still refused to go to the hospital for fear of having to explain what had happened. She barely ate and that was the thing that worried her friends, family and boyfriend the most.

_Flashback – one week before_

_Derek had called Karen's parents, Roger and Elizabeth Cartwright, the morning after the incident and they had flown into New York as soon as they possibly could. When they saw their daughter on the couch watching Disney movies in tears they were shocked._

_Roger immediately proposed giving _him _an ass kicking and Derek wholeheartedly agreed to the point of suggesting that he join in on the fun but Elizabeth had prevented that with the word "It'll be no good for her if you're both in jail," and both men had to agree._

_Karen couldn't even look her parents in the eye because of how she felt – like she'd failed them by not fighting hard enough - so she just stared at the TV screen every time they were in the room, desperate to avoid their pity because in her mind, she didn't deserve it. She heard their whispers about therapy or at least seeing a doctor but she ignored them, deciding that eventually she would take matters into her own hands._

It had been a fortnight since the incident when Karen tried to take her life, her parents had gone back to Iowa the day before and Derek had gone into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and some breakfast for her, leaving her alone in the bathroom. She filled the bathtub up and reached into the drawer, grabbing a fresh pack of razor blades, she undressed and climbed into the tub. Then she began to drag the blade across the skin on the inside of her wrist watching the blood seep from her veins, it gave her release and – for the first time in two weeks – she felt a tiny bit of control and she found that to be ironic, that the very thing she had lost, the very thing which was causing her to do such a thing, was now coming back to her in what she hoped would be her final moments. So, to continue feeling that control, she dragged the blade across the inside of her other wrist and watched as she bled out and as her world faded into black and grey, she thought of Derek and how once again she had failed him.

Derek found her in the bath tub, her eyes closed and her wrists slit, he dropped what he had been carrying – really not caring as to the mess he'd leave behind – and checked the pulse at her neck, it was faint but there. Then he called 911 "911, what's your emergency?"

"My girlfriend… she's… she's slit her… her wrists," he said, desperately trying to hold back the tears that threatened to fall from his hazel eyes.

"Sir does she have a pulse?"

"Yes, but it's barely there, I… I left her alone for half an hour…" he trailed off trying to keep his emotions in check.

She didn't know how she got to this place, she didn't even know where this place was, it seemed familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. She knew it was a theatre of sorts but that was all she knew for certain. She recognised faces in the audience in front of her, her grandparents - both maternal and paternal – her aunt Lucy, her cousin Charlie and a couple more, all of them dead. She started the walk down the stairs in to the crowd.

"If you go down there, you never get to come back," she heard a female British accent say and when she turned around, she recognised the face she saw. The woman who sat before her, on a piano stool at the edge of the stage was none other than Derek's mother, Karen recognised her from the picture on Derek's bedside table "They always give you someone familiar but not too familiar. I got my sister-in-law. God that was a nightmare!" Karen couldn't help but smile at the comment "See that smile says you're not ready to go… not yet anyway,"

"Where would I go?" Karen asked, staring at her prospective dead mother-in-law confusedly.

"Heaven, hell, some people just get stuck in the in-between, I hear that's torture – being able to see what happens to everyone you love but not prevent things or make them happen – anyway I'm supposed to tell you what happens if you do choose to go right now, I mean if you're still not sure," Karen nodded in response, she didn't know what she wanted anymore so maybe knowing what happened to her friends and family would be slightly helpful. "Ana will start dating Jimmy, which shows you how lapsed her judgement is without you, but he'll begin to abuse her and she won't be strong enough to leave. Ivy will take over the role of Marilyn, but she'll fall to Marilyn's old vices and overdose. Your mother won't be able to forgive herself and eventually she'll refuse to leave her house and become agoraphobic which your father won't be able to take and he'll turn to a much younger woman for comfort and eventually he'll trade them both in for an even younger model,"

"A-and Derek?"

"My son, my boy – without you – he'll gamble away all of his money, sleep with as many prostitutes as he can find – which will give him AIDs – but that won't be the reason why he dies, it'll be the eventual liver disease he'll get because of the alcoholism he achieves. Derek, he needs you, more than he's ever needed anyone… even me,"

That was the final nail in the coffin for Karen, she started pacing around the stage "I have to get back, I can't let that happen to any of them, it's just too cruel. How do I get back?" Karen started repeating over and over.

"You're in a theatre, just take centre stage,"

Every time he saw the bottom of a white lab coat, Derek looked up, hoping and – for the first time in his life – praying for some form of good news about Karen, he'd spoken to her parents and they were on the first flight to New York once again. He'd been on the very brink of tears as he told them what had happened, he was blaming himself for leaving her alone in the bathroom. Ivy had turned up, leaving rehearsals for Liaisons and the diva that was Terry Falls to be at the hospital waiting for some form of news. Ana had arrived not long after Ivy, bringing Jessica and Sue and then Julia and – much to everyone's surprise - Tom turned up bearing food and coffee.

"Karen Cartwright's family?" a brunette doctor called and Derek, Ivy and Ana rushed forward. "You're all her family?" the doctor asked, his brown eyes looking confusedly to Ana.

"I'm her sister, Derek's her fiancé and Ivy's our half-sister," Ana quickly announced, knowing all too well that no doctor would let them past this point unless he thought they were family.

"Okay well… Miss Cartwright lost a lot of blood but she should be fine, she's sleeping for the moment. We'd like to get a psych consult once she's woken up just so we know why she would have tried to do this,"

"Look, we know why she did this; she's been practically catatonic for two weeks because that's how she deals with trauma – clearly. She was raped by someone who we all, including Karen, thought we could trust and we tried to get her to go to a hospital or at least a therapist but she refused and we weren't about to break the law and _force _her to have treatment when she has a legal right to refuse it," Ivy explained, she'd done the psych consul/psych evaluation thing before and she knew exactly what that kind of scrutiny did to a person when they were at their most vulnerable.

"You're refusing treatment on her behalf then?"

"No I'm simply suggesting that we wait _until _she's awake before we go making any major decisions regarding the treatment of her mental health," Ivy retorted, she wasn't in the mood to be messed around and that's what this guy seemed likely to do.

"Fine have it your way then,"

"When can we see her," Derek asked, speaking for the first time in over an hour.

"I can take you to her now if you'd like," was the response they got and the very one they'd wanted to hear.


	3. Better In Time

She woke up to looks, from many of the people she knew and cared about, but – to her surprise – none of them were of anger or disappointment or even pity like she had expected but they were all of sadness. She looked around the room expecting it to be completely bare but she saw balloons and cards that said the words 'Get Well Soon' and flowers, bouquets and bouquets of Roses, Lilies and Carnations – her three favourite flowers – and all of her friends – Ivy, Ana, Jessica, Sue, Julia, Bobby, Dennis – people she hadn't thought of as anything more than acquaintances – Sam, Tom and Eileen – her parents and Derek.

Derek had a firm hold of her hand – she guessed that he had held onto it for a long while, since he was first allowed into the room – and she got the feeling that he wasn't going to let go any time soon and that was what made the tears spring to her eyes 'Why did I do this? Look at all of the people I've hurt,' she thought to herself as the salty tears continued their path down her cheeks.

"Hey," she heard the familiar British accent and a small smile crept across her lips.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into Derek's hair, taking in the smell of the hair gel he'd used since before they'd even met as she kissed his head; a part of her thought that she'd never get to smell that smell again either because she thought that he would leave her or because she thought that she wouldn't or couldn't make it back. And that was when she realised that the first words that she had said to her boyfriend after her near death experience were 'I'm sorry,' and she thought of what she was sorry for – for not fighting hard enough in the first place, for not coping and for being so selfish as to try and take her life – that was what she told herself she was sorry for.

"Okay guys, why don't we leave these two to have a moment alone," Ivy's voice broke through Karen's thought process and the brunette watched as everyone except her boyfriend filed out of the room.

"I'm sorry," Karen repeated and Derek looked up at her confused "I'm sorry for… for not fighting hard en-enough against him; I'm sorry for b-becoming this burden and I'm sorry for being s-so s-selfish th-that I… I d-did what I did," she continued turning into a bit of a blubbering mess as she did.

"Karen you don't have anything you need to be sorry for, you weren't coping and I should have seen that before," he told her, his eyes filling with tears "I'm the one who should be sorry,"

After a few moments of comfortable silence, Karen began to say "You don't have to stay here you know, I… I understand if you don't want to be with an emotional wreck like me, you deserve someone easy to deal with not… not me,"

"Karen I don't want any other girl, emotional wreck or not, I love you and I'm not leaving you for nothing and no-one," he said sincerely.

"Okay…" she said before waiting a couple of seconds before saying "Why don't you climb in here with me?" and when Derek tried to refuse, she replied with "Come on it can't be comfortable being hunched over in that chair," Once Derek agreed and clambered into the bed Karen decided to tell him what had happened in the dream-parallel world thing "I saw your mom,"

"What?" Derek asked incredulously.

"It was weird, I was on this stage and there was a bunch of my dead relatives in the audience and I went to go down the steps to join them and your mom told me not to and she explained exactly what would happen if I did die,"

"And what would happen?" he asked, his interest piqued.

"I'm not sure if I'm actually allowed to say or not," she told him as he played with her caramel curls "You know, I think you're the only person who won't call me crazy for saying that, even if I think I am," she admitted.

"You're not crazy love,"

"I love you," she told him as she drifted back to sleep, her breathing perfectly in sync with his.

"I love you too," he told her with a yawn.

* * *

_**A/N - Just so you guys no I don't think that suicide is selfish I actually think it's kind of brave but I figure that that would be how Karen would sees the act at this point. **_


End file.
